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> You have to enter the exact name of the website to find it on Google. MayVaneDay is also mirrored on I2P, TOR, and Dat...You have to look really hard for them

by danso 7y ago

> You have to enter the exact name of the website to find it on Google. MayVaneDay is also mirrored on I2P, TOR, and Dat...You have to look really hard for them now, and the best way to find them is through links from similar small websites Without getting into the argument of whether Google deliberately makes these sites hard to find, it doesn't really support the author's thesis that the old Internet was any better, at least in the case of MayVaneDay. In the early 90s, how else would you have found it except "through links from similar small websites"? > I miss the internet of the early 1990's, back before the World Wide Web had been visited by more than just a few computer geeks, back when websites like Vane's were the internet. Don't get me wrong, many cool things can be found on the internet today. But, the voice of individuals has mostly been drowned out... This feels incredibly myopic. The Internet of those days were limited to the extreme minority of people who were aware of the Internet and had access to a connected computer, nevermind took the time to figure out how to create for it. The author derides Facebook and Reddit as being too "easily monitored and controlled" to allow for individual voices but that's utter bullshit. The modern Internet is far from perfect, but the diversity and quantity (and arguably, quality) of voices is far better than when the Internet catered mostly to college-age kids and academics, i.e. people with access to free, high-speed Internet portals.

zozbot234 7y ago
> how else would you have found it except "through links from similar small websites"? By browsing Web-Directories such as DMOZ/ODP, mainly. Albeit that's really a late-90s and 2000s thing. We should go back to that kind of curation effort. It would be more of a challenge for politically-sensitive stuff (the Internet overall is a lot more politicized and less free-speech-friendly than it used to be) but for most uncontroversial stuff it would work well enough. (And no, Wikipedia is not a true replacement even though it might be the closest thing to one we happen to have. They purposefully keep external links to a minimum, for sensible reasons - they're building an encyclopedia, not a Web directory.)
- solarkraft 7y ago
  I'm sure there are lists like these and we just don't know about them.
  - anon9001 7y ago
    They're called awesome lists and this is the problem they attempt to solve. Here's a starting point https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome
- milquetoastaf 7y ago
  Doesn't Wikipedia explicitly encourage external links e.g. citations?
solarkraft 7y ago
> The Internet of those days were limited to the extreme minority of people who were aware of the Internet and had access to a connected computer, nevermind took the time to figure out how to create for it. Exclusivity makes things cool.
- chongli 7y ago
  That's disingenuous. Smaller communities are better because they tend to be more focused, on-topic, and familiar for their members. When they grow large they can drift off-topic and fall victim to status-seeking and other obnoxious behaviour. The only way to mitigate this (I don't believe it can be prevented forever) is heavy moderation. HN has survived due to the tireless efforts of some very smart moderators. It continues to creep away from its sense of community, however, and political flame-wars seem to be becoming increasingly common. Early sites on the internet had not developed the appropriate tools and social norms to moderate effectively against the deluge.
- User23 7y ago
  More precisely, as the sample size approaches the total population size, the mean of any trait in the sample approaches the mean of that trait in the total population. Specifically, the subset of the population that was on the early Internet had much higher average cognitive ability and creativity than the total population. Now the two groups are virtually identical.
mkozlows 7y ago
Back in the dawntimes (aka like 1995/96), you got to all sites by starting at the Yahoo! directory, and browsing to the category that you were interested in, and then going through their list of sites. If you made your own site, getting it listed on Yahoo felt like hitting the big time.
- bbanyc 7y ago
  Yahoo and then dmoz. Search engines existed (AltaVista was the best of a bad lot) but before Google you needed a curator to sort the wheat from the chaff.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  I don’t miss the days of paying Yahoo $400 for a listing.
zorronimous 7y ago
The last bit is funny, it would take a lot of words to explain. The most important mechanisms are filters that exclude topics from your friends feed, self-moderation and 3rd party monetization. You are a guest, it isn't your place, you should and shall behave as such. I dont know who your fb "friends" are but mine are diverse enough not to bother them with stuff they dont find interesting. You should post a picture of your lunch not some 1000 word article. Also, if you wrote the above on your own site i would return to read more. Here i dont bother.
cbsmith 7y ago
> The modern Internet is far from perfect, but the diversity and quantity (and arguably, quality) of voices is far better than when the Internet catered mostly to college-age kids and academics, i.e. people with access to free, high-speed Internet portals. Ironically, I could not share this article itself on Facebook, because it apparently violated community guidelines. So yeah...
- zackmorris 7y ago
  Ya I noticed that too when I tried to share it. I've been reading through the articles, and even though I am INFP and the author is INTJ, I align very strongly with many of the main points so far. It's a strange feeling to have (what in my mind is) a very consistent, rational view of reality with all of its beauty and flaws, yet have that considered to be so fringe or even disruptive somehow by society to the point where it is censored. I actually just posted quite a rant on Facebook about the dangers of censorship and how corporate control can distort the conversation, using links from that site as evidence. It's funny to see the comment count be 6 or whatever and only see 4 comments because the others are blocked. An oversight like that in their code tells me that even Facebook is having a hard time stomaching censorship, so that gives me hope that some enlightenment may come of all this.
rchaud 7y ago
Yahoo! back in 1998 was a web directory, structured like a phone book. Being the age that I was then, my favourite site was something called Maniac Joe's WWF page, which had reviews of the latest Raw episodes, Pay Per View Specials, Midi theme songs and pictures. I had a 30-min per week time allowance on the INternet-connected family computer, and I pretty much spent it all on that site. Those are the types of sites I miss. Single-topic with incredible depth of content, and written in a funny, friendly tone without the "content strategist" tone of voice that's all too common on "fun" websites like Vice, Gizmodo etc.

by danso 7y ago

zozbot234 7y ago

> how else would you have found it except "through links from similar small websites"? By browsing Web-Directories such as DMOZ/ODP, mainly. Albeit that's really a late-90s and 2000s thing. We should go back to that kind of curation effort. It would be more of a challenge for politically-sensitive stuff (the Internet overall is a lot more politicized and less free-speech-friendly than it used to be) but for most uncontroversial stuff it would work well enough. (And no, Wikipedia is not a true replacement even though it might be the closest thing to one we happen to have. They purposefully keep external links to a minimum, for sensible reasons - they're building an encyclopedia, not a Web directory.)

solarkraft 7y ago
I'm sure there are lists like these and we just don't know about them.
- anon9001 7y ago
  They're called awesome lists and this is the problem they attempt to solve. Here's a starting point https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome
milquetoastaf 7y ago
Doesn't Wikipedia explicitly encourage external links e.g. citations?

solarkraft 7y ago

> The Internet of those days were limited to the extreme minority of people who were aware of the Internet and had access to a connected computer, nevermind took the time to figure out how to create for it. Exclusivity makes things cool.

chongli 7y ago
That's disingenuous. Smaller communities are better because they tend to be more focused, on-topic, and familiar for their members. When they grow large they can drift off-topic and fall victim to status-seeking and other obnoxious behaviour. The only way to mitigate this (I don't believe it can be prevented forever) is heavy moderation. HN has survived due to the tireless efforts of some very smart moderators. It continues to creep away from its sense of community, however, and political flame-wars seem to be becoming increasingly common. Early sites on the internet had not developed the appropriate tools and social norms to moderate effectively against the deluge.
User23 7y ago
More precisely, as the sample size approaches the total population size, the mean of any trait in the sample approaches the mean of that trait in the total population. Specifically, the subset of the population that was on the early Internet had much higher average cognitive ability and creativity than the total population. Now the two groups are virtually identical.

mkozlows 7y ago

Back in the dawntimes (aka like 1995/96), you got to all sites by starting at the Yahoo! directory, and browsing to the category that you were interested in, and then going through their list of sites. If you made your own site, getting it listed on Yahoo felt like hitting the big time.

bbanyc 7y ago
Yahoo and then dmoz. Search engines existed (AltaVista was the best of a bad lot) but before Google you needed a curator to sort the wheat from the chaff.
alasdair_ 7y ago
I don’t miss the days of paying Yahoo $400 for a listing.

zorronimous 7y ago

The last bit is funny, it would take a lot of words to explain. The most important mechanisms are filters that exclude topics from your friends feed, self-moderation and 3rd party monetization. You are a guest, it isn't your place, you should and shall behave as such. I dont know who your fb "friends" are but mine are diverse enough not to bother them with stuff they dont find interesting. You should post a picture of your lunch not some 1000 word article. Also, if you wrote the above on your own site i would return to read more. Here i dont bother.

cbsmith 7y ago

> The modern Internet is far from perfect, but the diversity and quantity (and arguably, quality) of voices is far better than when the Internet catered mostly to college-age kids and academics, i.e. people with access to free, high-speed Internet portals. Ironically, I could not share this article itself on Facebook, because it apparently violated community guidelines. So yeah...

zackmorris 7y ago
Ya I noticed that too when I tried to share it. I've been reading through the articles, and even though I am INFP and the author is INTJ, I align very strongly with many of the main points so far. It's a strange feeling to have (what in my mind is) a very consistent, rational view of reality with all of its beauty and flaws, yet have that considered to be so fringe or even disruptive somehow by society to the point where it is censored. I actually just posted quite a rant on Facebook about the dangers of censorship and how corporate control can distort the conversation, using links from that site as evidence. It's funny to see the comment count be 6 or whatever and only see 4 comments because the others are blocked. An oversight like that in their code tells me that even Facebook is having a hard time stomaching censorship, so that gives me hope that some enlightenment may come of all this.

rchaud 7y ago

Yahoo! back in 1998 was a web directory, structured like a phone book. Being the age that I was then, my favourite site was something called Maniac Joe's WWF page, which had reviews of the latest Raw episodes, Pay Per View Specials, Midi theme songs and pictures. I had a 30-min per week time allowance on the INternet-connected family computer, and I pretty much spent it all on that site. Those are the types of sites I miss. Single-topic with incredible depth of content, and written in a funny, friendly tone without the "content strategist" tone of voice that's all too common on "fun" websites like Vice, Gizmodo etc.